Roller pumps have many uses in the medical field. For example, roller pumps are used as blood pumps during hemodialysis or cardiopulmonary bypass. Generally, medical roller pumps consist of a pump head and a pump drive, with the pump head comprising a pump stator and a pump rotor. The pump stator is essentially a hollow chamber having a surface against which one or more hoses or tubing are compressed by the pump rotor. The pump rotor, which is rotatable about its longitudinal axis, is arranged in the pump stator in such a manner that the pump rotor engages tubing positioned in the pump stator with two or more rollers. On rotation of the pump rotor, the rollers compress the tubing as they are rolled along the tubing. A fluid medium contained in the tubing is then transported in a direction of the pump rotor rotation. In order to deter the tubing from wandering within the pump stator while under the influence of the rollers, one or more ends of tubing sections entering and exiting the pump stator are typically fastened in place relative to the pump stator. For roller pumps with reversible running direction, it is usual to provide a fastening at both ends of the tubing within the pump stator.
In some roller pumps, fastening means for holding tubing in place in a pump stator are inserts that latch together to hold the tubing and are screwed into place on the pump stator. The inserts come in many different sizes, each for one size of tubing. The disadvantage of using such fastening inserts is that they need to be screwed out and back in for each necessary tubing size change, which is not efficient.
Another tubing fastening arrangement for a roller pump is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,877. The described fastening arrangement is a detachable piece from a pump head that includes two individual fasteners for attaching two sections of tubing. The detachable piece, including both individual fasteners, has grooves that are slid on proturbances on the pump head to allow for detachment and reattachment of the whole detachable piece. In order to change the tubing in the detachable piece, the detachable piece must be completely removed from the pump head.
Thus, it is desirable to have a tubing holding device for a roller pump that enables easy exchange of tubing configurations in the roller pump.